


The Twelve Days of Mischief (Managed)

by mischief_managed1021



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Christmas Fluff, Cute, F/F, F/M, Friendship, Hogwarts, Hogwarts Sixth Year, M/M, Marauders Era (Harry Potter), Romance
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-12-21
Updated: 2020-12-21
Packaged: 2021-03-11 05:13:44
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 3,768
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28199670
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/mischief_managed1021/pseuds/mischief_managed1021
Summary: Sirius is having an internal battle with himself about feelings for a certain werewolf, so he distracts himself with the thing that he does best: Pranks! Christmas at Hogwarts, very fluffy, eventual relationship. Rated M for mature language
Relationships: James Potter/Lily Evans Potter, Marlene McKinnon/Dorcas Meadowes, Sirius Black/Remus Lupin
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

Chapter One: December 13, 1976

It was on December 13, 1977 that Sirius Black internally declared war on all poets. Specifically poets named Bryan, Keet, Wadsworth, Shell, and Collingridge, or whatever their names were. It didn’t matter; Sirius hated them all.

He was lounging in the Gryffindor common room after dinner, his lanky body splayed out face-down on the maroon couch that was slowly absorbing him as he sunk deeper and deeper into its cushions. His cool gray eyes, almost languid from the hours of pre-holiday exam preparation, were eager to relax for a couple of weeks before returning to the mundanity of schoolwork.

Sirius’s gaze fell on Remus Lupin, who was sitting in the armchair adjacent from Sirius. He was leaning so far forward into the book he was reading that it could have spontaneously opened up a portal to another dimension and swallowed him whole, red cable-knit sweater and all. The crease between his eyebrows deepened as he scanned the page of the tattered green book he was so deeply immersed in.

Sirius lifted his body slightly and tilted his head to the side so that he was able to catch the title of the book that had captured his friend’s attention. The worn title was just barely visible and Sirius squinted to make out the small black letters as they came into focus: Romantic Poetry: Byron, Keats, Wordsworth, Shelley, & Coleridge.

Disinterested, Sirius huffed with annoyance and resumed his sprawled-out position on the couch. He wished that it would swallow him; perhaps while he was in the couch amongst lost items from fellow Gryffindor students’ pockets he would find the Galleon he had lost a week and a half prior. Or his sanity. Or both.

Remus briefly tore himself away from his poetry and cocked his head to look at Sirius. As he did so, his eyebrow crease disappeared and was replaced by a smile that jolted Sirius’s large intestine. Sirius took the opportunity to take a mental picture of Remus’s face before he re-buried his nose in his book, and stored it in the file labeled _Remus Lupin, I may or may not be in love with you but I don’t think you feel the same way and I’m too scared to ask so I bottle up my emotions and cry myself to sleep on a weekly basis._ This file was sandwiched between _I fucking hate my family except maybe Regulus even though he’s an obsequious little twat,_ and _Am I gay or just Moony-sexual?_ Sirius’s file cabinet was growing too convoluted for his liking, so he decided to lock it up and stow it away in the quietest recesses of his mind for the time being.

“Moooonyy I’m bored,” whined Sirius, desperate to cut off his internal monologue before he spontaneously combusted.

Without looking up from his book, Remus softly “hmmmed” in response. Sirius groaned.

“Moony, you’ve either been reading that stupid book all week or studying for exams and I want to pull a prank on someone,” Sirius huffed dramatically.

Peter and James briefly halted their game of chess to snicker at Sirius’s distress, and Sirius shot them a murderous glare that would have sent even the bravest Gryffindor running in the opposite direction with their tail between their legs.

“Remus, you really should relax,” James insisted, observing his remaining knight as it was brutally executed by Peter’s excessively violent queen. “Our drama queen Padfoot is right for once despite his usual proclivity for being wrong.” At this insult, Sirius arranged his face into a frightening expression of rage that even The Noble and Moste Ancient House of Black would have been proud of. James recoiled slightly, but the smirk remained fixed on his mischievous face.

“Yeah Moony, it’s the holidays!” Peter piped up, gleefully watching as his queen cornered James’s bishop. “Check,” he added with a self-satisfied grin.

Remus sighed, dog-eared his page, and carefully placed the book on a nearby table in a silent surrender.

“I concede,” he declared with resignation as he slid from the chair he was sitting in, to the floor.

Sirius had abandoned his Noble and Moste Ancient House of Black Ice King act, and had replaced it with a concerningly contemplative look; it was a look that suggested one thing and one thing only: Mischief. The cogs began to turn in Sirius’s head as nebulous, half-formed pranks formed in his brain and a slow smile spread across his face.

Remus was watching Sirius’s expressions rapidly change and he warily shot James a look that clearly said “Why is he like this?” James simply shrugged and flicked over his king to an exceptionally pleased Peter.

“Pads, what are you thinking about in that strange mind of yours? Please enlighten us with your infinite wisdom.” James stood up and stretched his lanky limbs, yawning.

“Well Prongsy, I have some very premature pranks in the works but I think we can execute them before term resumes. Or after, I’m not fussed either way. ” Sirius turned over onto his back feeling like a rotisserie chicken; he half expected James to sprinkle rosemary and salt on his body before eating him. “James?” Sirius glanced over at his friend, but he appeared to be in an entirely different dimension; Lily Evans had just walked into the common room wearing (In Sirius’s opinion,) a rather spectacular green sequined dress.

James managed to cease gaping open-mouthed before choking out an “Alright, Evans?” Lily offered him a small smile and an eye roll before being joined by Marlene McKinnon, Dorcas Meadows, and Mary Macdonald who looked equally as beautiful.

“Slug Club dinner,” Lily explained, grimacing slightly as she said the name. Sirius didn’t blame her; he thought it was a stupid name for a club.

Remus nodded at the girls with a smile as they headed for the portrait hole and Peter gave a small salute. James was still standing dumbstruck, eyes aimed at the place where Lily and her green dress had been moments before.

Remus and Peter went into peals of silent laughter at James’s uncharacteristically awkward behavior and Sirius rolled his eyes.

 _At least I don’t look that idiotic when Remus walks into a room,_ Sirius mused. _Or do I? There’s no way_ , Sirius firmly reassured himself.

“Earth to Prongs.” Sirius sighed and pulled out his wand, not bothering to change his position on the couch. _“Aguamenti,_ ” Sirius muttered and flicked his wand and a jet of water streamed from the tip, drenching James and his carefully ruffled hair.

James shook his head doggedly and blinked. “What was that for?” he sputtered angrily. Remus and Peter were doubled over now, clutching their stomachs and fighting for breath.

“If I hadn’t drenched you in water you probably would have been standing there for the next twenty years.” Sirius smirked as he said this; he was clearly amused with himself.

Remus wiped his eyes and seemed to take pity on James because he waved his wand and most of the water that had claimed a residence in James’s hair and clothes receded into the tip of Remus’s wand.

“Moony, you should’ve left him!” Sirius pouted, disappointed that his amusement had been so ephemerally lived.  
Remus chuckled, and the rich velvety sound practically rendered Sirius a puddle that would inevitably stain the hearth rug of the Gryffindor common room. He didn’t think that Professor McGonagall would particularly enjoy scraping him off of the floor though, so he resisted liquifying for now. “I thought that our good friend Prongs has had the mickey taken out of him enough for one day,” Remus explained.

James sighed and announced that he was heading up to bed.

“Love you, my princess!” Sirius called to James. James rolled his eyes, but he couldn’t resist blowing him a kiss from the stairwell.

“Goodnight, Goodnight! Parting is such sweet sorrow. That I shall say goodnight ‘til it be ‘morrow!” Sirius recited, clutching his heart in mock-sadness. James waved a delicate wave as he retreated into the boy’s dorms, theatrically sobbing as he did so.

“So what shall we do now, lads?” Sirius turned to Peter and Remus who looked confused, albeit impressed.

“Sirius, where did you learn Shakespeare?” Remus’s eyebrows were raised in confusion, taking several of the scars that were slashed across his face up towards his forehead.

“One of those Muggle books you’re always sticking your nose in” Sirius replied nonchalantly as though they were discussing the weather and not the most theatrical performance since Shakespeare himself.

Peter looked as though he were still absorbing the performance, because he had a rather dazed look on his face as he announced that he was going to bed as well.

“Night, Wormtail,” yawned Remus.

“Goodnight, Wormy” Sirius called after Peter’s retreating form as he padded up the stairs towards the boy’s dormitories.

Sirius and Remus sat in comfortable silence for a while after that, listening to the crackling of the dying embers of the fire and the howling of the wind against the glass windows of Gryffindor Tower. Sirius finally broke the silence.

“Hey Moony?”

“Yes Pads?”  
“I’m hungry. Fancy a bite?”


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Baked goods, frosting, and sexual tension, oh my!!!

After several minutes of whining, Sirius had convinced a hesitant Remus to accompany him to the kitchens for a snack insisting that if he didn't, he would immediately perish due to lack of food. Sirius tiptoed into the dormitory to retrieve James’s Invisibility Cloak, additionally grabbing the Marauder’s Map as he slipped silently down to a waiting Remus. 

Remus was standing at the bottom of the stairs, arms crossed, clad in a pair of gray pajama pants, mismatched socks, and a lumpy red sweater that made him look, as James so lovingly put it, homeless. Sirius had approximately one hundred and thirty-five mental pictures of Remus wearing said maroon sweater stored in his _Remus Lupin, I may or may not be in love with you but I don’t think you feel the same way and I’m too scared to ask so I bottle up my emotions and cry myself to sleep on a weekly basis_ file, each one better than the last. Before Sirius could delve too deeply back into the abyss of his unrequited love for Remus Lupin however, he remembered his mental pact to keep that particular file locked away. Instead, he directed all of his energy at the prospect of food. 

Sirius draped the silvery folds of the Cloak over both he and Remus, silently hoping that no one roaming the halls (namely Argus Filch and his demonic kitten) would take notice of two pairs of sock-clad feet skittering towards the kitchens. 

After a thorough scan of the Marauder’s Map, they were able to make their way to the kitchens without being sighted by Filch or his demon-spawn, which was an added bonus. Remus and Sirius had always moved as a cohesive vessel, but differently than how Sirius and James operated. Neither of them had attempted to form a cohesive anything with Peter, but James had tried. 

“ _Lumos”_ whispered Remus, and the tip of his wand lit up to illuminate the familiar painting of a fruit bowl. He stretched out his arm, which from under the Cloak looked peculiar floating as its own entity, and tickled the pear with a long, slender finger. The pear began to chuckle before morphing into a large, green door handle. The door swung open and Sirius and Remus slipped inside, eager to begin a feast. 

The kitchens were unusually quiescent; perhaps they had arrived after the house elves retired for the evening. Sirius placed the Cloak neatly in a corner and looked around:

“Moony darling, what would you like us to indulge ourselves in tonight?” Sirius crooned confidently, although internally he realized that calling Remus “darling” rolled off of his tongue a bit too naturally for his liking. 

The Crease reappeared in between Remus’s eyebrows as he pondered Sirius’s question for a moment before replying with “sugar cookies.”

Sirius was watching The Crease disappear as quickly as it had come, and had to collect himself before replying.

“Brilliant” he declared, shaking himself from his Remus-induced stupor. “Er, where do we get them? Is there a spell to make them…appear or something?”

“Merlin Padfoot, you really are a pureblood prat at heart.” Remus snickered as he heaved a gargantuan bag of flour to the large table in the center of the kitchens. 

Sirius looked mildly offended. 

“I always thought the cookies appeared out of thin air like everything else in my life,” Sirius huffed in a poor attempt at defending himself. 

Remus chuckled lightly as he began to count sticks of butter.

“Food is the first of the five Principal Exceptions to Gamp’s Law of Elemental Transfiguration; you can’t conjure it out of thin air, you can only transfigure it or increase the quantity if you already ha-”

“Alright Moony, we just finished exams; I don’t need you turning into Professor McGonagall on me,” interrupted Sirius. 

Remus had a myriad of baking ingredients on the table; in addition to the flour and butter there was sugar, vanilla, baking powder, salt, milk, powdered sugar, and a dozen eggs. Sirius wasn’t quite sure what to do, so he decided to follow whatever Remus did. 

Remus rolled up the sleeves of his maroon jumper and Summoned a few measuring cups that came soaring out from some hidden crevice or drawer. Whilst Remus busied himself with Summoning cookie cutters, Sirius tied his glossy, black curtain of hair into a loose knot with his wand. 

Remus, amused, watched the process. 

“Mary taught me,” he explained, shrugging. 

“It looks nice,” Remus offered and Sirius’s mind immediately zoomed into overdrive, as Remus had just praised the one thing that Sirius revered with a sanctity reserved for clergy members and Beatles fans. 

_“Merlin’s pants, Remus just complimented my hair. Fuck closing the Remus Lupin file, I’m reopening it.”_ Sirius was performing the conga internally at this small complement, but outwardly he managed to keep his composure. 

“Obviously.” Sirius winked at Remus who rolled his eyes before turning back to the ingredient-laden table. 

Remus placed a mixing bowl in between the two of them and turned his attention to the flour. 

“Sirius, we need three cups of this; D’you want to measure it out?” 

Sirius decided that baking couldn’t be any harder than Potions, so he accepted. He carefully leveled out the flour, scraping the excess from the top of the measuring cup like Remus instructed and watched it fall into the bowl with a small _poof_ of white. 

Remus scribbled down a list of measurements for Sirius to attend to on a spare bit of parchment that he happened to have in his pockets. 

_“Moony_ would _conveniently have a spare bit of parchment in his pocket. I swear his pockets have an Undetectable Extension Charm on them. I wonder if he has any room for me in there,”_ Sirius thought as he measured out the baking powder and salt. He stood back and proudly admired the white mound he had created. 

Remus had creamed the butter and sugar together, added the vanilla, and was watching Sirius with a look of curiosity that illuminated his thin face. 

Suddenly self-conscious, an anomaly for Sirius, he tucked a strand of hair behind his ear and smiled nervously. Well, he grimaced. 

“Sirius?”

“Yes, Moony?”

“Would you like to crack the eggs?”

Asking Sirius to crack the eggs had been a rather fatal mistake on Remus’s part; he had done it correctly with the two eggs that were needed, but he spontaneously developed an egg-cracking obsession because “Moony, this is so fun!” 

Sirius proceeded to crack the remaining ten eggs in a bowl, delighted as each yolk slipped out of the broken shell. 

“Purebloods,” Remus muttered, laughing softly. 

“Hey, Sirius we have to add the eggs to the butter and sugar now,” Remus called after Sirius who was in an entirely different world, immersed in his egg-cracking. Remus had previously dubbed it his “mind palace,” after a Muggle book series called Sherlock Holmes. 

Sirius finished cracking the last egg, and with a bow to an invisible audience, he turned back to Remus. “What now?”

Remus groaned. 

They had painstakingly managed to fully combine all of the wet ingredients (Sirius was lamenting about the broken eggs because “Remus, what if there was a chicken in there? Did I just murder twelve chickens?”) and they just needed to mix the dry and wet components together to form the dough. Remus had assured Sirius that there were no chickens in the eggs, and also reminded him that he ate both chicken and eggs on a daily basis, so they were able to proceed with minimal catastrophic events. 

Remus began to slowly add the dry ingredients to the wet as Sirius stirred. Sirius however, was not particularly skilled with the art of stirring cookie batter; as it became thicker with flour, he was having trouble combining it. 

“Pads, you’ve got to stir like _this_ ” Remus corrected. “Here, let me help.” His capable hands covered Sirius’s and guided them in the proper technique to adequately combine cookie dough. 

Sirius nearly died. 

The dough began to form as Remus deftly worked the dough, hands still covering Sirius’s. 

“ _No, I don’t want the dough to form,”_ Sirius thought. _“I want to stay here until a cataclysmic event separates us, because at least then I’ll die happy.”_

All good things must come to an end however, and Remus’s hand stilled as he deemed the dough sufficient for rolling out. Sirius inwardly groaned. 

“We’ve got to roll the dough and cut it out now,” Remus conveyed to Sirius, who was surreptitiously eating the dough with the air of a small, disobedient child. 

Remus lightly smacked Sirius’s hand and sprinkled flour on the countertop. 

“Remus?”

“Sirius.”

“For someone who is such a menace at Potions, you really aren’t half bad at this baking stuff.”

“I’ll ignore the first part of what you said and let the second part fuel my ego.”

“Well it’s true.”

“I know, Pads.”

“You’re still the smartest lad I’ve ever known though. Even if you are a complete plonker at Potions.”

“Thanks, Sirius.” 

They lapsed into a comfortable silence as Remus rolled out the dough and began cutting out different shapes. Sirius watched him, and took a burst of mental pictures. This particular bunch of mental pictures depicted Remus with his fraying maroon sweater, sleeves rolled up to his elbows. His face was smudged with flour. Sirius’s heart was smudged with Remus. 

After several minutes of cookie-cutting, trees, stars, candy canes, gingerbread men, and a miscellaneous, oddly-shaped object (“Remus really, it’s clearly a dog”) littered the table. Sirius placed the dough in the large oven, taking care to put his “dog” in the center of the baking sheet because “he deserves it.” 

While the cookies baked, Remus and Sirius began working on the frosting. Sirius discovered that he was quite fascinated by powdered sugar. So much so that he was shortly covered in it, and he looked rather comical. 

Remus stifled a laugh when he looked up at Sirius from the large batches of frosting, which were now colored pink, green, blue, yellow, and a strange gray color that Sirius concocted by mixing all of the colors together. He thought it would turn the frosting rainbow, despite Remus insisting that was not how colors worked. 

“You’ve er, got something on…” Remus gestured to his entire face. 

Sirius responded by blowing a handful of powdered sugar into Remus’s face.

“Now we match,” he chortled. 

Remus exhaled and sugar came tumbling down into his eyes. His eyelashes were decorated with the white powder, and he closely resembled a tea cake. Sirius thought he looked good enough to eat. Then again, that thought was perpetually hovering in the forefront of Sirius’s mind. 

“It looks like the cookies are done,” he announced, crouching in front of the gigantic oven. 

After several burnt fingers and a burnt tongue, which Sirius had acquired in his haste to eat, they had begun decorating their cookies. Remus expertly slathered the cookies in icing, and garnished each one neatly with sprinkles. Sirius was an expert at eating the cookies Remus decorated. 

Sirius’s magnum opus was his dog cookie, complete with the gray frosting. He admired his work like a doting mother, and declared that he was going to bestow his masterpiece to James, which Remus found amusing. 

Remus placed all of their cookies on a platter and stepped back to examine his handiwork. The cookies were rather paradoxical, as Remus’s neat, uniform cookies contrasted with Sirius’s more _abstract_ approach. 

After cleaning the dishes and clearing the utensils away, they prepared to make the trek back to Gryffindor Tower. Sirius was bent over to collect the Invisibility Cloak, and as he stood up rather abruptly, he tripped and crashed into Remus who had been standing behind him. Both boys tumbled to the floor in a tangle of limbs and confectionaire’s sugar, and Remus landed right on top of Sirius who groaned, for several different reasons. 

Sirius’s face had surely burst into flame by now, he thought as his eyes locked with Remus’s. 

_Click._ Another mental picture was taken. 

Remus reached up and swiped his thumb across Sirius’s cheek. 

“Sugar,” he murmured. 

Sirius was too paralyzed to say anything, and looked slightly dazed. He was transfixed on Remus’s face, and Remus stared at him for a few seconds before clearing his throat and hopping up, pulling Sirius up off of the floor.

“Sorry, Moony” Sirius croaked. “I wasn’t paying attention and erm…” he trailed off, blushing furiously. 

“Don’t worry about it Pads.” Remus brushed away the apology, and grabbed the platter of cookies from the table. 

“We should er..” 

“Yeah,” Remus agreed. 

Together, they made their way back to the common room. Sirius was hyper-aware of Remus’s breath on the back of his neck as they walked, and he distracted himself with a cookie. 

Finally, they made it back to the common room, even though the Fat Lady was cross with them for awakening her from her deep slumber. They looked at each other, and burst out laughing; they were covered from head to toe in frosting, flour, sugar, and in Sirius’s case, sexual confusion. 

“I can’t wait to give James his cookie; he’ll be so pleased,” Sirius grinned as he proudly carried the dog-shaped cookie up towards the boys dormitories. Before he made it up the stairs, he turned and gazed at Remus who was making a futile attempt to brush the sticky ingredients off of him.

“Moony?” 

“Hmm?” 

“I had fun tonight.”

“Me too, Sirius.” 

“Goodnight, Remus.”

“Goodnight, Pads.” 

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you so much for reading this! It really means the world to me. Anyways, there is more confusion for Sirius approaching! Poor lad.

**Author's Note:**

> Chapter one is complete! Not much happening but there will be more of a plotline as the story progresses.


End file.
